


Virtual Realities (The Disappearance of Iron Man Remix)

by antigrav_vector



Series: Remixes [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Sex, Accidental Voyeurism, Extremis, Fluff, Get Together, Getting Together, Kinda, Light Angst, M/M, Other, POV Switches, Steve saves the day, Unintended Consequences, dubcon, technological mishaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: Tony takes Extremis. Things go sideways. Steve saves the day. It's a Thursday.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[Fanart] The Disappearance of Iron Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318089) by [Lilian_Cho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian_Cho/pseuds/Lilian_Cho). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Lilian_Cho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian_Cho/pseuds/Lilian_Cho) in the [Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness_2017) collection. 



> Thanks for beta-reading this [Dapperanachronism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dapperanachronism)!
> 
> Also, note the tags, dear readers! This fic is (partially) inspired by the (amazing) [Bluescreen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1013706) by Mountainrose and szzzt. There are some (unintendedly sexy) technological shenanigans below.

[Tony POV]

It was mid-January. The Mandarin was finally dealt with and so was most of the aftermath. He'd fixed Extremis with the intent of using it on himself once it was safe, but he'd had to set that project aside in favor of getting the unstable version back _out_ of Pepper and getting Stark Industries' green energy initiative rolling. He still hadn't done anything about the wreckage of his Malibu house.

He was more focused on making sure Pepper was okay.

God, Pepper.

The two of them had still been tentatively dancing around the issue of formally dating, when Coulson had waltzed into the penthouse and handed Tony a file that would change their lives. They'd been okay for about a year and a half. Tony had been kind of proud of that. It was the longest anyone had ever been with him. And then the Mandarin had fucked everything up, taking Pepper and turning her into some weird perverted kind of almost super-soldier.

She'd gotten the hell out of dodge, after that, dropping the idea of dating him like a hot potato, and Tony couldn't blame her. The kinds of threats he was facing down as Iron Man were only escalating in intensity, and Pepper had a company to run.

As much as he adored her, he'd known he couldn't ask her to worry about him, as well, after that debacle. Not in good conscience.

In retrospect, when the team had come together, that might as well have been the death knell for his relationship with Pepper. He hated doing it, but saving the world had to come first. There had been an invasion to stop that week, and he knew damned well that there was always a possibility of a second one. That was part of being a futurist. Sure, until that day, he'd always thought the probability of a portal to another part of the galaxy was pure science fiction, far beyond even his own tech's capabilities, but there had been concrete proof right there on his own roof that it was possible. And that meant someone somewhere might be able to replicate it, magic cube or not.

Once the Battle of New York had been won and he'd recovered a little from the beating he'd taken things had seemed to stabilise, and Tony had gratefully thrown himself right back into their routine, even as he knew it would end someday. 

Now, still reeling a little from his informal breakup with Pepper, Tony decided it was high time he took the chance to get rid of the huge glowing weakness implanted in his chest.

He hadn't counted on the side-effects, though.

When he'd tweaked the code to let him interface his brain with his suit, JARVIS, and the internet, he'd assumed that they would come to him.

Well, turned out, it was the other way around. As he'd discovered the first time he wore the suit -- for a visit to the Helicarrier and SHIELD -- he became the armour in a very literal sense. His quip, delivered to the Senate with entirely insouciant flair a couple of years ago, was far more than metaphor or rhetoric, now, and it was very disorienting. JARVIS had done what he could to buffer him from the information streams when he'd realised what had happened to Tony, but that had left him feeling like the armour was his skin, instead. The rush of the wind over it felt like it was chilling him to the bone, for all that he was snugly wrapped in his underamour and inside the sealed and temperature controlled metal suit.

He'd shivered his way through that flight, flirting with the symptoms of true hypothermia at times, until he could get back to New York, and his workshop.

The first thing he'd done was install some heating elements to help keep the armour's outer surface from hitting -50 C.

The second thing had been to take a hot shower and fall into bed.

He hadn't been able to sleep, though.

Extremis kept tugging at his attention, trying to pull him back out of his body and into the internet's wild waters, pinging him with every last junk email, status report from the Tower's defense systems, JARVIS' automated processes, and notification that his bots dumped into the 'shop wifi buffer. And that was after he'd managed to stop Extremis from trying to randomly access half the internet at once, including Wikipedia, YouTube, and the Pentagon.

With a groan, Tony rolled onto his side and gestured to JARVIS. The lights obediently came up gradually to about 20%. "Sir?"

"It's too loud. Turn off the internet."

JARVIS huffed at him. "If you would allow me to demonstrate how to put up proper firewalls, that would no longer be the case."

"Fine," Tony let himself fall onto his back, the sheets tangling around his waist and legs.

"I must request that this be done in your workshop, Sir," JARVIS added. "There is greater protection from stray wireless signals there."

Hauling himself to his feet with a groan, Tony grabbed the first pair of 'shop jeans that came to hand and a tank top. He wouldn't need to bother with long sleeves for this. He wouldn't be welding or forging anything.

"Tony? Can't sleep?"

Cap was lounging in the common room, and Tony gave the man an acknowledging wave over his shoulder as he made his way to the elevator. The guy had more or less moved in after his road trip -- which had turned out to be quite short, to Tony's surprise -- and taken to hanging around the common areas of the floors designated for the Avengers. Tony had moved there, himself, leaving Pepper the penthouse suite. He'd seen her mouth twist as though she'd wanted to protest, but had let him, in the end.

The place just held too many memories of 'them'. He'd lived there with her for the better part of two years, even if they hadn't ever officially been an item, no matter what the world thought.

Instead, he'd taken one of the spare suites on the upper of the two common floors, for what little good it did him when he couldn't seem to sleep these days, and spent far more time in his workshop.

"More or less," he agreed after he'd stopped in front of the elevator.

"I could--" Cap started. The ping of the elevator doors cut him off mid-sentence.

"Unless you know how to shut my brain off," Tony replied, not caring what Cap had been about to offer, as he stepped into the car, "thanks, but no."

Cap raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing, letting the elevator doors close.

Something told Tony that one-liner would come back to haunt him, but he didn't much care at the moment. He had other problems to sort out.

Settling in at his main workbench a couple of minutes later, he brought up the holographic interfaces with a gesture to JARVIS. "Gimme a look at this firewall you're offering."

"Of course, sir."

The code came up on the interface, and he set about tweaking it, optimising it for use with Extremis, and making sure he had precise control over all the incoming and outgoing data. He had no desire to be hacked, after all, and now that he had Extremis that was a distinct possibility. 

Losing himself in his design and code tweaks was almost a relief. It let him tune out the background noise in his head that felt like static. He had no idea how much time had passed when he finished and came up for air. "J?"

"I am running the process simulation, sir."

Tony crossed his arms on his worktable and put his head down on them, closing his eyes. Sleep was doing its best to claim him, but the constant pings from Extremis were preventing it from succeeding.

It felt like an eternity before JARVIS verbally announced the next stage of testing. "Simulation complete, sir. No errors found. Commencing automated debug check."

"Skip it, J. I need that firewall now."

"Sir! There are still--"

"Don't care. Give it to me." Tony raised his head with effort and forced his bleary eyes to focus on his keyboard long enough to input a string of commands.

JARVIS resisted briefly, despite everything. "If you insist on doing this, sir, you must remain in the workshop until the automated debug has completed."

Tony gave in. His AI did have a point. There was no reason to ask for that kind of trouble if he didn't have to. He could sleep on the sofa tucked in the corner next to his kitchenette while JARVIS ran the debugger. "Fine," he grumbled. "Now come on. The level of background noise is starting to really drive me insane."

"Very well. Initiating workshop lockdown."

That seemed like overkill. As the windowed wall went dark and the locks closed with a loud snick that seemed to echo, Tony raised an eyebrow at JARVIS' overcautious approach. "Well?"

"Requesting root access from Extremis, sir," the AI replied.

Tony suddenly felt as though someone were tickling the ridges of his ear and the edges of his hairline and needed a moment to set the bizarre feeling aside long enough to figure out how to tell Extremis to grant access. Once he had, the ticklish feeling subsided, leaving behind a phantom tingle. "Granted. Start the upload."

"Initialising upload and install."

As the sensation of cold and goosebumps raced over his skin and up his spine to lodge at the base of his skull, Tony stumbled over to his sofa and let himself fall face first onto the soft cushions.

When the install completed and blessed near-silence finally descended on him, Tony groaned in sheer relief and let the tension rush back out of his shoulders.

He never registered the transition into sleep.

* * *

[Steve POV]

"Unless you know how to shut my brain off," Tony said as he stepped into the car, "thanks, but no."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him, but let him go. The room went silent again, and Steve considered the exchange. He'd come to terms with a lot of things during his road trip. One of the first things he'd done was visit Peggy.

They'd had their dance, a few years too late, and she'd told him in that pragmatic way of hers that he needed to move on. To find someone who could keep him balanced. Then she'd started grilling him about Tony, rather to his stunned surprise. That was how he'd learned that she was his godmother and why Tony was as touchy as he was about Howard. It had been an enlightening conversation.

Since then, he'd seen a few sights, toured the country a little. Given himself the time to mourn what could have been during those lost decades. But New York called to him too strongly to resist, after a couple of weeks, so he'd returned home. Well, okay, not to Brooklyn, maybe. But he thought it counted.

The thing about it was, though, that since that conversation with Peggy, he'd started _noticing_ Tony. Not just the surface layer of distracting flash and sarcasm. No, there was far more to the man. He was a lot like Bucky, that way. Using charm and looks to distract those around him from what he didn't want them to see.

He'd started to see why Ms. Potts put up with Tony. Why Col. Rhodes -- who Steve thought had to be possibly the most moral and upright man he'd met in this new era -- treated Tony like a younger brother.

Then, he'd started noticing other things about Tony. It started with his hands. The first thing that had caught Steve's attention was the way Tony talked with his hands all the time. Afterward, he'd spotted the nervous ticks, the carefully crafted media persona -- which Steve had finally realised Tony had used around the team when they'd met and which had misled Steve so badly -- and the ferociously defended private moments he carved out for himself in the exposed life he led.

In the wake of those realisations Steve had started dreaming. Worse, he'd started _drawing_.

Unsure what was driving him towards Tony, what was pulling at him so strongly, he'd taken off to go see Peggy again, and talk to her. He'd been more than a little bit unimpressed by her peals of laughter and her suggestion that he take Tony on a date. SHIELD had tiptoed around the issue of -- Steve still hesitated over the thought briefly -- of two men stepping out together, though they had told him it was far more accepted now.

Peggy's open approval of the idea and clear encouragement had been a bit of a revelation, in that respect, and in the end that had been what had convinced him to even consider the idea. He'd hesitated over actually making a move, though. He and Tony had gotten off to a very bad start, and he didn't want to tear down all the progress they'd made toward tolerating one another.

And, well, he knew _exactly_ how he'd like to shut Tony's brain off, but distracting Tony with his body wasn't an option. Not now, and maybe not ever. He was not about to break up a relationship, even if it didn't seem to be working too well from his perspective. For all that he had reached the point of admitting to himself that he rather wanted to take Tony to bed, that was simply off limits.

Although... He tipped his head back against the sofa as he thought the problem over. Maybe he could get a hold of someone who could.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Everyone says Tony and Ms. Potts are stepping out together."

"They do, yes."

"So why hasn't Ms. Potts come by since the night after the Invasion?"

Steve got the impression that the AI would have sighed, or perhaps declined to answer under other circumstances, but after a pause that implied he might have asked Tony what to say JARVIS replied, "Ms. Potts has been quite busy keeping on top of the demands that running Stark Industries puts on her, and those have increased sharply as a result of the Chitauri invasion."

Steve thought that over for a few seconds. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

JARVIS paused again, and this time it felt like the AI was considering how to respond, rather than consulting Tony. "If you are asking in an attempt to give them time to organise a date or otherwise spend time together, Captain, I must inform you that despite public perception, they are not a couple."

Steve startled. What?

"If, on the other hand," the AI continued, "the offer is genuinely meant as an offer to assist in the cleanup and PR aspects of the aftermath, then I will happily relay that offer to Ms. Potts. I have no doubt that she would be quite happy to have someone with your level of public influence supporting Sir's and Stark Industries' efforts."

Steve considered that for a few seconds. That was distinctly not the answer he'd expected to hear. "I... I see." He chewed on his lower lip, debating with himself, before he asked, "What about Tony? He'd been working pretty much constantly since the Invasion and I don't think I've seen him sleep."

"You cannot throw any stones, in that regard," JARVIS told him, sounding huffy now that Steve had commented directly on Tony's behaviour. "But your assessment is not inaccurate. He has just fallen asleep on his workshop sofa, however, and I am inclined to let him rest."

That was a pointed hint, if he'd ever heard one. Steve made a face. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, standing and stretching. "I see how it is."

He had a lot to think about, and at least if he did it while lying on his bed, JARVIS would leave him in peace.

* * *

[Tony POV]

Tony woke to the conflicting feelings of being in the armour and falling, and lying on his workshop sofa. He was also falling through nothing, which didn't compute.

"Sir!" He heard JARVIS' voice twice. "Sir, what is wrong?"

He couldn't seem to find the words to speak, but somehow he managed to stop the fall, and felt his body relax on the sofa.

"Sir, are you experiencing a nightmare?"

This time he managed to respond. "I'm fine, J. This is ... new."

"Sir?" JARVIS sounded puzzled, this time. "Why are you only speaking to me using Extremis?"

"I am?"

"You are. I am still detecting vital signs indicative of REM sleep."

What the fuck was even happening right now? Tony hastily called up the logs kept by his new firewall. Nothing out of the ordinary was in there, though.

"All systems look green from here," he replied.

"Then wake up," JARVIS demanded.

That was not a terrible idea, really. If he was stuck here -- wherever here was -- Tony made a face. That would be bad. Trying to follow though was tougher than he'd have thought. He couldn't just reach for awareness anymore, it seemed. It felt like he was trying to swim through some kind of non-Newtonian fluid toward a goal he couldn't quite see.

A second attempt, wherein he was less focused on waking and more on trying to work out how to get to true awareness, had him groaning as a strong jolt of pleasure shuddered through him.

"Sir! What--" JARVIS sounded dazed and almost drunk. "What was _that_?"

Tony didn't have an answer. "No idea, buddy. But whatever it was, it felt nice."

Trying a third time got him another strong jolt of pleasure, and this time, it echoed back to him over Extremis from his AI. This would have been fine under most circumstances, but the pleasure ricocheted back and forth between them, seeming to get stronger with every iteration. 

Or maybe he just paid more attention each time.

Either way, it was clearly not a good idea to let it continue spiraling out of control.

"J," Tony managed to bite out, "feedback loop, I'm gonna--"

He didn't get a verbal reply, worryingly. Trying to set aside the sensations starting to get him hard in his imagined armour -- and probably out in the real word as well, if he were going to be realistic about it -- Tony tried to close off his side of the link.

Before he succeeded -- long before -- the surges of pleasure crested and broke, and he came with a whine.

The feedback slowly calmed to a trickle, then stopped, leaving him gasping for air in the suit and hoping he didn't have a wet spot on his jeans the size of Nebraska out in the physical world. "Well, shit," he managed after a minute. "J?"

JARVIS didn't respond, though, and that was even more worrying than before, since he didn't have pleasure clouding all of his thoughts anymore. He pinged JARVIS, opening all the ports he had wide, since he was still in the locked workshop.

After a few agonizingly long seconds he got a reply. "Sir, perhaps removing the firewall would be the wisest course of action. Without an additional barrier in the way, it may be easier for you to leave this simulated environment."

Tony wanted to groan. He didn't want to remove the firewall. At all. Granted, it was the better alternative to being stuck ... wherever he was, but wow he did not want the internet back in his head and feeling like it was replacing his nerve endings with fiberglass cabling.

"Can't we avoid that?"

"No, sir. Attempting to patch the system while it is live presents a very distinct risk that you will be trapped with no recourse."

"Fine, do it." Being stuck inside his head with no chance of getting back out was not Tony's idea of a fun time. The sensation was just as weird as it had been the first time, making his skin feel like it was pickling and a shiver ran up his spine at the phantom cold.

"Uninstall complete," JARVIS announced after ten and a half seconds. "Workshop firewalls holding, connection stabilised."

Tony reached for awareness again, for that connection to his physical body.

When nothing happened for a long moment, it started to sink in that he might be stuck anyway. The realisation that he'd failed again was one he felt keenly. Well, right before the panic.

Free fall suddenly tugged at his gut, and Tony realised that the bootjets of his virtual armour had failed, leaving him falling through infinity. Knowing that the palm repulsors weren't powerful enough to keep him aloft, he flailed out of pure reflex, reaching for the emergency reboot-release on his left hip panel. "JARVIS!"

"I have no control over the armour you perceive yourself wearing," JARVIS told him, his tone intense and words urgent, "you must resolve this!"

Oddly, that made him think of Cap, who was probably awake again by now. He set aside the thought. Cap couldn't help him with this.

Gathering his wits, Tony looked around himself. All he could see in every direction was blue sky, but nonsensically he was still falling, even though there was no ground below him and no horizon to orient himself with. Off in a direction that always felt vaguely behind him, no matter which way he turned, loomed JARVIS' presence, feeling oddly like sunshine and warmth.

Once he'd managed to work himself past the sensation of falling enough to reach for JARVIS and the connection to the loudspeakers in the Tower that his AI represented, Tony fumbled his way through the directory until he reached the ones on the common floor and Cap's. Seizing hold of both at once, he cleared his throat. "This thing on?"

"Tony?" Cap's voice filtered through to him in response, oddly tinny and sounding more amused than anything else.

"Hey, come down to the lab. J'll let you in. I need you to help me with something."

There was a pause Tony wasn't sure how to interpret before Cap answered. "Give me a minute. I'll be right there."

Even just knowing reinforcements were coming was reassuring on a level Tony wasn't sure he wanted to acknowledge. He wasn't even going to touch the fact that knowing it was Cap made the reassuring nature of that knowledge a few times stronger.

Settling in to code something he was fairly sure would fix the issue, Tony cracked his metaphorical knuckles.

* * *

[Steve POV]

Steve was jerked out of the haze of his thoughts by the sound of Tony clearing his throat over the speakers in his apartments. "This thing on?"

"Tony?" Steve was pretty sure Tony would hear the suppressed longing he'd been fighting to get under control -- he glanced at the clock on his nightstand and winced a little -- all night.

"Hey, come down to the lab," Tony went on, apparently ignoring whatever Steve's voice had revealed. "J'll let you in. I need you to help me with something."

Steve fought the mingled disappointment and relief at not being discovered for a beat before he answered. "Give me a minute. I'll be right there."

The speakers went silent with a short hiss of static, and that got Steve's attention where Tony's obliviousness hadn't. He'd never heard any kind of static on the Tower's speakers or any tech Tony had designed before. In fact, he'd gotten so used to their crystal clear comms equipment that this burst of static was an enormous red flag.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain?"

Steve's eyes narrowed at the distraction audible in JARVIS' voice. "Tony's in trouble isn't he." 

It wasn't strictly a question but the AI replied anyway. "He is. Please hurry." 

Pulling a t-shirt on as he shoved his feet into his sneakers and hurried out of his bedroom, ignoring the fact that he was still in his sweat pants and not wearing anything under them, Steve tried to imagine what on earth Tony might need his help for. Steve had no idea what that could be when Tony had JARVIS to assist him and was ridiculously competent in his own right, where it came to the kind of work he did.

The elevator doors stood open, waiting for him, and Steve didn't hesitate to step in. JARVIS snapped the elevator doors closed fast enough to nearly catch Steve's left sneaker and pull it right off his foot. The moment the doors had sealed, the car descended, moving quickly enough that Steve's ears actually popped. He winced, bringing a hand up to rub at his ear, but said nothing. If JARVIS was willing to sacrifice comfort for speed, whatever this was, was probably urgent enough to warrant haste.

"What's wrong, JARVIS?"

The elevator doors opened on the workshop floor, and as he watched, the darkened windows flicked back to transparent and the locks on the door opened with a click.

"Sir seems to be caught inside a virtual environment he unconsciously created in his sleep using Extremis," JARVIS responded.

Steve blinked, surprised. He could feel his own expression going determined a moment later, though. "And what can I do about that?"

A garbled message appeared on one of Tony's holographic interfaces, interrupting them before the AI could respond. The only portions Steve could decipher were "stop the encroaching decay," "a dying world," and "--r gentle face."

Unsure what that meant, Steve turned back to the main workstation. "JARVIS?"

"Sir has coded a patch that we believe will solve the issue, but neither he nor I can run it, as such things require manual authorization from a physical user. Normally this is not an issue, but under the current conditions, sir is in no shape to press 'run'."

Steve wanted to scrub his hands over his face, and only barely managed to refrain. Only Tony would get himself into this sort of mess."Alright. Where is it?"

The garbled message disappeared from the interface, replaced by what looked like lines of code with a prompt overlaid on top. Steve couldn't help but worry. He had no idea what he was doing, here. This kind of work was so far beyond what he understood it might as well be written in Martian. But despite that, it would still obliquely be his fault if Tony ended up in worse trouble because of this. "And you're sure this will work?"

"There is a small chance that the patch will fail," JARVIS admitted, "but it is negligible, and the potential benefits far outweigh the possible consequences, at this point."

"Hit the damned button, Cap," Tony put in, that same strange static distorting his voice.

Physically swallowing back his apprehensions, Steve nodded. "Fine."

Actually pressing 'accept' was anticlimactic. A progress bar appeared, and climbed upward in increments, slowly at first, then in larger and larger jumps.

When it completed, Steve finally spotted Tony where he lay on the sofa -- he'd been too distracted before -- and he had to bite his lip. Tony had clearly been enjoying himself quite a lot in whatever dream world he'd constructed for himself.

Tony stirred a moment later with a groan. "Ugh, thanks for the assist," he grumbled as he sat up and stretched gingerly, rotating his shoulders as though they were stiff.

"No problem." Steve had to clear his throat. "Go shower off. Lunch is in an hour," he tossed over his shoulder as he left the lab again, choosing to make a strategic retreat before thoughts of what exactly Tony had been dreaming about could get him riled up enough to need a shower of his own.

He could feel Tony's eyes on him until the elevator doors closed behind him.

* * *

[Tony POV]

"No problem." Cap cleared his throat before he added. "Go shower off. Lunch is in an hour." 

The last words were tossed over his shoulder as he left the lab again.

Tony stared after him, unashamedly admiring the man's profile and his ass, but not at all sure what could have provoked that reaction. He'd never known Cap to beat that kind of hasty retreat before. "J?"

"Yes?"

"Any idea what just happened?"

"I could not begin to say, sir," JARVIS replied. "Were I to hazard a guess, I would say that the state of your clothing was likely what made the Captain uncomfortable."

The state of his-- "Huh?"

JARVIS gave the distinct impression of sighing. "Must I truly spell everything out for you, sir?"

"Oh, you are not allowed to sass me right after I nearly got stuck in the internet." Tony scowled. He gave in and hauled himself up off his sofa, though, heading for the elevator himself. He really did need a shower. 

The very thought that Cap might be weirded out by the fact that Tony'd come in his pants was absurd, anyway. There was no way Cap hadn't ever come across the concept of sex before, and it was even less likely he had never had a wet dream himself.

The elevator let him out on his floor, and Tony stepped out, making a beeline for his room.

He knew his own sexuality was fairly fluid. He was interested in men, women, and many types in between. But Cap? Even if he was up to date on modern sexuality and gender, there was virtually no chance he was anything other than straight. Let alone interested in someone like Tony Stark. Even Pepper, who was at least as much of a saint as Cap, hadn't been able to cope with his mix of issues and ability to attract crazy. Not for long.

He stepped into the bathroom and turned on his shower, peeling his clothes off as he waited for the water to warm.

"Don't even think about it, Stark," he muttered to himself. "That way lies madness."

By the time he was clean and dressed again, the hour Cap had quoted was almost up, and Tony was no closer to working out what Cap's reaction had meant. Giving it up for a lost cause, he shrugged and made his way down to the common floor. The smell of pizza greeted him, and he suddenly felt ravenous.

"What'd you order?" he called as he made his way into the open plan kitchen.

Cap was already there, perched on a barstool at the kitchen island, with an open pizza box in front of him, though he hadn't eaten any yet. "The other two are pepperoni and plain," he replied evenly.

Tony eyed his teammate suspiciously. Had that been a hint of strain in Cap's voice?

Taking the barstool opposite Cap, he pulled the closer box over to him and opened it, not much caring what was inside, and pulling out a slice. He could get himself something to drink later. "You've been acting weird today," he said bluntly after taking a bite of his food. "What's wrong?"

Cap looked down at his pizza and didn't answer.

His curiosity piqued now, Tony wasn't about to let it go. "Really? You're trying that tactic? Come on, talk to me. Don't tell me you're all awkward over realising that I had a good dream."

That quip got him a choked sound that might have been a laugh.

"No," Cap managed to get out, "it's not that."

"Then what? You ran out of the 'shop like someone lit you on fire."

Apparently losing patience with the topic, Cap stood and stalked around the island. Tony watched him a little warily, unsure what exactly had provoked this response. When he stood behind Tony, he reached out and pulled him bodily off the barstool.

Tony had to bite back a startled exclamation, and stumbled into Cap, off balance. He was caught and held there, and, yep, that might actually be the weirdest thing that had happened to him in the last 24 hours.

"Cap?"

"I wasn't going to say anything, you know. I was going to see what happened." Cap said, almost as though the words were only meant for himself. "But you just know exactly what buttons to push, don't you."

"Apparently," Tony quipped back. It wasn't strictly a question, and Tony wasn't sure he was comfortable with the position he found himself in, nice as it was. "Now, mind telling me exactly what's happening here?"

"Come have dinner with me. Tonight."

"You--" Tony stared at him. "You do know what that sounds like, don't you, Cap?"

"Thought I told you long ago to call me Steve. And, yeah," Steve squared his shoulders as though he was about to wade into battle, "I have a pretty good idea what it sounds like."

Stunned more than a little by this turn of events, Tony just stared at his teammate for a few long seconds. Steve looked more and more like he wanted to run again, like he had earlier that day.

"You know what, I'm pretty sure everyone in the nation would just about crucify me if I turned you down," Tony joked, "and I'd probably never forgive myself either. But I've gotta say, this is kind of a shocker. You've never even hinted you liked men before."

Steve huffed at him. "It was never that important."

"Until now."

"Yeah," Steve's hands slid up his back to rest, one on his shoulder and one at the back of his neck, making Tony shiver. "Until now." After a beat he added, "I could show you how to shut your brain off."

Tony’s eyes flickered over Steve’s face briefly before his own hand came to rest on Steve’s chest. He gave Steve a challenging look as he leaned into the touch. “Oh? You think you have what it takes?”

"I know I do."


End file.
